Mountains of the Mind

<b>From the <i>New York Times </i>bestselling author of <i>Is a River Alive? </i>and<i> Underland </i>a soaring blend of cultural history meditation and memoir about the mysteries of the world's highest places and our unending quest for the summit </b> <p/><b>Wonderfully illuminating.<i> --Los Angeles Times - </i>Fascinating.<i> --The New York Times Book Review</i></b> <p/>For those who love mountains their wonder is beyond dispute. But for many their allure is beyond reason; their extraordinary beauty offset by the immense risks involved in climbing them. In this groundbreaking and now classic work Robert Macfarlane answers the enduring 'why' of mountaineering. He explores how mountains have come to grip the Western imagination and hold so many of us spellbound drawing us up into the high places--sometimes at the cost of our lives. <p/>Braiding history geology human stories and glittering accounts of his own journeys in high wild landscapes from the Rockies to the Himalayas Macfarlane unfurls the mysteries and passions of mountaineering's imaginative evolution. His account begins in the mid-1700s when a fascination for mountains was sparked by the work of both poets and scientists in Europe. It ends with a vivid re-creation of George Mallory's three ill-fated expeditions in the 1920s as Mallory sought to be the first to summit Mt. Everest.